Wednesday Snippets
We’re heading away for the weekend once again, leaving tomorrow afternoon to go and visit the middle child. He moved away back in February to commence his studies on the mainland. Hence the lighter entries today as I get stuff ready for the trip.
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In comments to my recent post on Saab safety belts, there was mention made of the US-mandated electrified safety belts, which started their travels around the A-pillar and came back on a track toward the B-pillar to secure the occupant.
As noted there in comments, some people found them to be a pain as the car would routinely outlast the mechanism that controlled the belts.
I’d like to add a second problem to that first one - the fact that they seem to look quite rediculous and make photographing the interior of the car pointless.
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Everyone should be proud of a sales rise, right? Even if it’s measured in total sales of three figures - for the whole quarter - for five brands combined….
In the year in which GM celebrates its 100th birthday, Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Hummer and Saab saw their sales in the country rise to 650 units, following on from a similarly strong performance last year when the company grew by 10pc.
Go Bahrain, Go!!
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bugatti outsold Saab in some of those gulf states.
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With all the Turbo X stuff in the last few days, I neglected to note the sneaky release of Opel Insignia photos. They leaked via the Dutch AutoWeek site a couple of days ago.
The significance - this is the big debut of the Epsilon II platform, which will be the architecture underpinning the Saab 9-5, which I believe we’ll see at a motor show later this year. Let’s hope I’m right, oui?
We can’t, or shouldn’t, take anything away from this visual and apply to the 9-5, but what we can look at is the forecasted powertrains. These range all the way from 1.6 litre petrol engines to 2.9 litre diesel engines.
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And continuing the series of custom Saab registration plates. This one is from Ron L……
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Today is my eighth day without a cigarette.
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I couldn’t see Saab having the automatic belts all that long. As I recall, automakers had to install either a driver’s side air bag *OR* the automatic belt in cars 1988 and on. What year did Saab first make the driver’s side air bag standard?
As much as you might think the electrified automatic belt setup sucked, it’s a lot better than what GM put on many of its vehicles at that time…attaching the belt to the door pillar…with the idea that you could, hypothetically, leave the belt buckled and slide in under it. Naturally no one used it that way, and, moreover, they just never fit right onto the person.
oui, ce serait bon.
The passive restraint system was at first an interesting option for my 1988 900 Turbo. It was “pretty cool” to have the seat belt buckle you in by itself. But (and that’s a big but) when the thing began moving slowly and would stop halfway until you gave it some slack (or lost weight), it became a nuisance. I eventually replaced mine with regular seat belts which always worked. Imagine that.
Ugh. I hate those stupid auto seat belts. They were pretty good at catching on your face if you weren’t paying attention.
I wasn’t aware Saab ever used them. I’ve never seen a 900 with them before.
The OPC-variant of that Insignia will probably have XWD from Haldex also, quite interesting stuff!
Probably a 2.8l 300hk V6 .
More info here, in Swedish tho > http://www.automotorsport.se/nya-bilder-p%E5-opel-insignia/14104
Opel Insignia OPC promises a 300hp 2,9l V6 Diesel. The base for that engine is the 250hp 2,9l V6 Diesel that made it´s debud in the Cadillac CTS in Geneva. It would not surprise me if we see the same engine in the NG9-5 as the diesel version of the 9-5 Aero. Wonder what the petrol Aero specs will be? Hmmm
/Tom
I’m not sure exactly what the law was with those silly seat belts. I feel like for a few years it was mandated that the car had to have a “passive restraint system” — and so to avoid putting in passenger airbag those ridiculous motorized belts were installed instead.
Then in 1996 passenger airbag was mandated as standard and the motorized seat belts vanished.
The thing is my Saab is a 93 and has neither a passenger airbag, nor the motorized seatbelts. So maybe it was really only 94′ and 95′? But that photo shows a C900 with them, and 94′ was the first year of the GM900…so who knows.
What I do know is this: The passive seat belts were literally a joke! The motorized ones were the shoulder-harness only, you still had to latch the lap-belt, so you were not any better off than we are today. In fact you were worse off because they were annoying. Some people would just disconnect the shoulder-belt and call it good. If you’re not a seatbelt person, that was the smart thing to do, because otherwise you were driving around with a shoulder — but not lap belt, and in a crash you’d slip right under the belt and be strangled by it.
Is it wrong that I always thought these were cool? When I was younger, my “baby-sitter” (I think I was 9 or 10) used to have a car with motorized seat-belts, and I loved to watch them move. In fact, this morning I saw an old Honda Accord (ick, BTW) with these, and it made me smile.
Yeah, that probably IS wrong…
Go Swade! Nice job on the no smoking–keep up the good work!
Another “Nice Job Swade” from me. Keep it up!
~P
Did they hypnotize you into eating carrots instead of smoking?
http://www.leftlanenews.com/saab-9-5-sedan-future.html